Sanguine
by violetvapours
Summary: An incident in a briar patch of the royal gardens left Sigyn scarred with bloody desires. Years later when Prince Loki is grievously wounded in battle, bleeding to death, she donates the core ingredient in one potion that can restore him - with tragic consequences, which Loki is certain to turn to his advantage. Pre-Thor/Post-TDW
1. Part 1

_AN: So I'm a little addicted to Logyn, and a little obsessed with blood. My latest iteration of Sigyn is as tortured as ever, and I've drawn inspiration from the film_ Secretary _in creating a romance of repressed kink.  
The resulting piece of trash is dedicated to my sicko boyf and my ho Mads. And Tom Hiddleston. (If you're reading this, we can't be together, I'm sorry). _

* * *

**Part 1**

* * *

He returned from Muspelheim over his brother's shoulder, his blood darkening Thor's cape to a deeper shade of crimson. He didn't hear his bellow, nor see Thor's face as white as his own for once as he was rushed down the Bridge.

A particularly swift-moving Eldjötunn had bested Loki at his own game. The phantom of smoke had slipped unseen from a veil of steam to plant its searing blade between his ribs; taking him by surprise as he fixated on puppeting his own illusions to bait their opponents away from Thor and the Warriors Three, stealthily thinning the numbers from the periphery. With a lance of agony the breath had vanished from his lungs and blood streamed in its wake. He fell to the ashes, his last thought spent wondering if he would escape his friends' notice this time.

As he now hovered on the edge of death in bloodless repose upon a healing bed, one of the Queen's own handmaids requested a private audience with her. Among the few picked to study under the famed sorceress, the woman specialised in Haematurgy. She spoke hastily now, hands twisting together in urgency.

'Your Majesty – the Healers say the Prince's blood is too rare to be restored. With your discretion – I'd like to offer an alternative.'

With a jerk of hope Frigga leant forward in her chair, desperation grasping through her normally calm gaze. 'Yes?'

'The –' Lady Sigyn's words hitched in her throat, and then tumbled from her lips. 'The _Sanguine_ potion requires an ingredient I possess.'

The All-Mother's brows shot up. 'Loveblood.'

That of someone in love with the drinker. Frigga sniffed, the flash of suspicion in her eyes dimming to disappointment in her trusted attendant. 'No doubt you are aware of the side effects. A sly manoeuvre by your House.'

Sigyn shook her head. 'I'll stay out of his sight,' she insisted. 'I ask for no acknowledgement or reward. Only to save him,' she added in a murmur, 'for my Queen.'

Frigga's eyes narrowed in consideration. 'Restoring him would take more blood than one person can give – a much smaller one at that.'

' _I_ can be given a transfusion,' Sigyn countered. She'd already thought of all this. The potion was simmering in her labroom, prepared and waiting for her blood to substantiate its volume.

'You would risk your life for that of my son?'

The younger sorceress' expression became pained. 'Please allow me, Your Majesty – I owe His Highness a debt. He wouldn't remember but he once saved me as a girl.'

Loki's significance to the handmaid became obvious. Despite their urgency, Frigga's gaze softened. Only she could understand Sigyn's capacity to love the smaller, quieter Prince. 'My child ...'

'Please do not add to my shame your Majesty, I beg of you.'

'If you do this, you will have to spend the rest of your days outside his notice,' Frigga reminded her. 'Never speaking to him, never visible to his gaze ...'

'I swear on my life,' Sigyn vowed to the Queen's slippered feet, a crack in her voice betraying the tears that stung her eyes.

* * *

Loki returned with a fierce gasp of breath, sensation crashing over him like a wave. His chest ached deeply, and he clutched at it, searching in frustration for a wound he could not find.

'Be calm, Loki,' a familiar voice crooned. 'You're whole – you're healed.'

Mother. He relaxed at her words, instantly soothed for the moment. 'I thought … I was …' his words trailed off groggily. Glimpses of Hel swam in a kaleidoscope behind his eyes.

'You're back with us now,' Frigga assured him. 'Thor brought you back just in time for the healers to work their craft. We're incredibly lucky to have you still, my darling.'

A wild sense of ardour bubbled up in his chest from a deep reservoir of sentiment. Loki let his head fall back to the pillow, drawing a series of full breaths as a chuckle danced from his tongue. _He'd eluded death once again._

 _'_ Enjoyyour victory, Loki,' Frigga enthused, rising to her feet and bowing to touch her smile to his forehead. 'There'll be a feast tonight in your honour, if you are up to it.'

He felt very up to it.

He readied himself with vigour, pausing occasionally to appreciate the glimmer of sunset through his windows, the birdsong on the breeze outside, the change in scents from study to bedchamber to bath. His skin felt somehow sensitised to the bathwater flowing through his hair and the fabrics of his raiment brushing into place.

Loki descended into the great hall feeling better than he had before he nearly died. When a beaming Thor lurched him into his embrace, Loki had no discomfort closing his arms around the barrel of his brother's chest. Ale was shoved into his hand courtesy of Hogan, but already his nerves tingled with a warm brew of affection.

'I don't understand all the fanfare,' sniffed a sarcastic Lady Sif. 'Loki was _always_ known for leaving a party early.'

'But not before winning the last bet – or turning the tides to our favour as he did on Muspelheim,' Thor effused, clapping his hand on Loki's shoulder and giving him a shake.

'To Loki!' cheered Fandral.

* * *

The tides turned on the mood he awoke in with mercurial rhythm. Within a few days, the mania that stormed his veins courted a vague melancholy that was sometimes nauseating. Loki became unsure of how to occupy himself. He'd fallen with envy bittering his heart like a splinter, but the irritation of his ambitions seemed to have faded away most disturbingly. There were schemes he'd been formulating, but he found they now mattered little to him. His appetite grew fickle, and his already troubled sleep evaded him the more he came to care for his nostalgic obsession – with nothing.

After a particularly lachrymose evening he sought out Frigga's counsel, but she was reticent when he questioned her about his affliction. Normally so fluent with his words, Loki struggled to explain his experiences as he paced back and forth before her, raking his fingers through his hair.

'Like ... like an infusion of joy and sorrow … Incessantly spurring – but completely directionless –'

She was unconcerned. 'It's just a reaction to the transfusion. You were drawn back from death with a powerful revival. Your energies will reach equilibrium in short time.'

But they didn't. A week later he remained hypnotised, increasingly drawn to the source of his disturbance. He revisited the library day after day, leaving in dissatisfaction after dark when his candle ran low. One afternoon he had taken to roaming the shelves aimlessly, following a fleeting sense of significance that ebbed and picked up like the scent of a trail.

Loki stepped into the Haematurgy section and went still. The sense tugged him insistently, urgently, and he stumbled forward, feeling he was on the cusp of discovering something important.

He was alerted to motion up ahead and peered at the far end of the row to catch sight of a figure dashing between the shelves. His jaw tightening in determination, Loki jogged after them. He made out the shape of a woman eluding him. She showed no sign of stopping, and he was forced to pick up pace as he followed her out of the library entirely.

Loki exited the library and glanced both ways down the corridor to sight her sprinting away from him. Loki took to the right, lengthening his own strides, and sped after her while milling subjects glanced at him with confusion as he dashed past them. Her evasion soon led him through a maze of passageways with which he was unfamiliar. He pushed on with blood pounding through his legs, rushing in his ears, desperate not to lose her –

He rounded a corner, only to emerge into a deserted corridor. He stopped short, having glimpsed only a trail of burgundy hair, like a streak of dried blood against the stone. The Prince stood caught in place, utterly bewildered, his knowledge drawing a blank as he scoured the space for an exit. She'd vanished like a phantasm in the blink of his eye. He was accustomed to wielding illusions, not being haunted by them. Loki began to wonder if something might be wrong with him.

With a great effort he clawed his emotions back beneath a mask of composure. With a scowl he directed his mind elsewhere – he had more pressing matters deserving of his attention, left woefully neglected after his brush with death.

Thor's Coronation approached, the eldest brother's spotlight casting Loki in shadow. To his relief, and his horror, his sentiments began to ebb. The vivacity decayed in his veins, that sweet madness soured in his mouth like stale mead. Its departure left him colder than before. Hollower. Hungrier. His mood darkened and his tongue sharpened.

And then Gungnir was in his fist, and the rush of power that swelled through him occupied his heart enough that Loki began to forget the caress of that strange limerance that had lulled him for the blink of an eye.

* * *

She missed him from the library. She missed him from the great hall. From the corridors, the healing rooms where he regularly sought sleeping draughts, and the alcoves where he thought he went unnoticed.

As much as that, she missed Frigga's smile. The Queen's grief was a torture that eclipsed Sigyn's own. She'd hoped her love might temper the troubled Prince – but to her horror, it had sent Loki mad, and over the edge of the Bridge into the abyss below. Guilt gnawed at her insides like hungry rats. Frigga had trusted Sigyn to save him and she drove him to his death. She was selfish to hurt.

Every day she waited to be dismissed, to be arrested, but Frigga never spoke blame as she wept. Sigyn's sisters fussed and fretted over her health, observing that she had not been the same since she made the donation. Of course, they knew nothing of the potion, of the consequences it had wrought, and how little she deserved their care.

Sigyn's sacrifice had taken more from her than she'd anticipated. She had bled for him to the edge of death and was revived by three of her sisters, pooling their blood to restore hers. While her love had always been a burden, she'd never thought that giving it away would hollow her out so deeply. The day Loki had come looking for her, she could only sink against the other side of the wall in the concealed servant passageway and sob at the lost look she'd glimpsed in his eyes, realising it was only her own yearning reflected back at her.

Then seeing it poison him had turned that tenderness to toxin in her own heart. She vacated the Healing Rooms, vowing never to Heal again. Though she often dreamed of following her ill-fated Prince off the Bridge, Sigyn's loyalty to the All-Mother kept her indentured to the Realm. She decided to stay among the living until her research produced a better method of blood replenishment than the one she had foolishly resorted to. When she'd contributed all she could to her field, she would be free.

None had known of her infatuation. Freyja had tried to facilitate betrothals with soldiers, courtiers, and scholars alike with diminishing success. Unlike the Queen's other attendants, Sigyn was the only one who could see her son through his mother's eyes. With their bronze and gold legacies, the Aesir had always eyed the dark Prince with suspicion. But Sigyn saw the smooth palace marble in his pale skin, Odin's ravens in his black hair, and – if she had the fortune to catch a glimpse – Frigga's potion vapour in his jade grey eyes.

As youths it was Prince Loki who had drawn her first flush of lust, and a peculiarity of the situation had left her deeply imprinted with depraved cravings as she matured. While she withdrew into her academic obsessions she'd watched him detach himself to his own dark devices, and their paths ran parallel, never crossing until Sigyn's fateful intervention. Perhaps she'd only wanted to return the scar, and mark him as irrevocably as he had her that day in the palace gardens. But too late she had learned that blood was like fire; and the risk of playing with it equally as great.


	2. Part 2

**Part 2**

* * *

The King wove a path through the dark corridors, skulking through the shadows of his own domain. As midnight struck he emerged into a courtyard to be relieved by the sight of the magnificent monument to the All-Mother he'd had constructed there. He frequently felt the need to check it, to confirm the likeness of her features and inspect the sheen of the marble. The need for privacy during his visits had sent him nocturnal, and he did not attend court before noon most days – not that he was a popular presence in the great hall.

This time, though, he sighted a dark shape beneath Frigga's sculpture that gave him pause.

He drew closer in careful silence, until he could make out the form of a woman draped on the steps at Frigga's feet. His pulse rushed with outrage before his gaze snagged on the woman's hair, a strange shade that struck him as bloodstained brown.

In an instant he was revisited by an old, almost forgotten but unmistakable feeling of his chest splitting in two, rent by opposing forces of agony and ecstasy. He remembered, just – grasping for the memory like a dream after waking – a splinter of sweetness in the chaos of his revival, Thor's Coronation and banishment, Odin's betrayal, his own brief Regency, the destruction of the Bridge – and he could barely breathe.

For a second time Loki questioned her reality as he stared down at her. She had slipped through his blindly-grasping fingers once. She, who for some inexplicable reason had lured his instincts with a scent of seidr like heady perfume. Why she held such power over him, and why she was resting at the feet of his mother's monument, he intended to find out.

Loki took the steps and lowered into a crouch, finding her asleep. Her vivid hair was unarranged and left trailing across her face and over her shoulders, giving her the appearance of something left to grow wild. But whomever she was, her observance of the departed monarch was immaculate. She was gowned in strict black mourning dress that extended to her collar and tightly sleeved wrists, the material flaring at her hips from where it clung to her narrow waist. Even her nails were black, as though dipped in ink.

Loki seated himself beside her. He waited patiently, puzzling on the mystery she posed; pondering what manner of curse she might have laid over him. If only he could see her face ...

Her eyelids parted wearily and then flew open in alarm at the sight of him hovering above her. 'I'm sorry Your Majesty!' she gasped and scrambled to her feet beneath her skirts.

As she made to hurry away down the steps, Loki said, 'Stay.'

'– I won't disturb your privacy –' she muttered with a servant's politeness, ignoring his request and continuing her brisk retreat.

' _Stay_ ,' Loki commanded as he straightened.

She broke into a run.

Loki smiled. His reflexes were sharper now, honed by survival. His mind calculated farther ahead, slowing the moments around him. He caught up to her within two apparations, barely quickening his pulse.

In a flash of motion Loki caught her by the throat and pinned her to a wall – and she made a terrible mistake. Her fingers flexed defensively into a claw and before he could snatch it with the other hand, wet warmth flooded his nostrils. She was dangerous, Loki noted rapidly, her seidr fanged as a venomous viper. Such talent could harm as much as heal; a sorceress like her could pull a man's blood like the strings of a puppet. He felt blood drain from his face as he grew suddenly light-headed. Only moments from blacking out, Loki slipped a small blade from his coat and planted it in her side.

She arched back with a yelp and the dark spots immediately cleared from his vision. She would know to divert bloodflow from the wound, but the pain should keep her secure. He locked a knee behind one of hers for good measure, and her pale fingers clutched his vambraces desperately. They were both breathing hard, Loki gulping for air to restore his consciousness and she drawing shuddering gasps against the bite of his knife.

Loki snorted blood from the back of his throat and spat it to his side. 'I pursued you once through these halls, seeking the source of some spellcraft laid upon me. This time, you will tell _your King_ who you are, and what in Hel you did to me.' He relaxed his fingers on her throat incrementally.

'I'm no one –'

'The next lie that leaves your lips will sentence you to the dungeons.' Her eyes widened for but a moment before they dropped despondently, shifting in consideration. 'You're tempted?' he asked with incredulity. 'Have you nothing to lose?'

'Contentment's not in my nature.' The words were spoken with such bitter conviction he could taste them on his own tongue. She seemed frayed at the edges by the weight of some torment, and he surmised that he would need only pull at a thread and she would unravel.

' _How do I know you?_ ' he demanded, giving her a shake that drove a cry from her throat.

'I was – a handmaid to – Her Majesty.'

His heart was shielded to most threats of sentiment, but Frigga was his undoing. It was only his mother's mercy that tempered his hand now. 'What more than that?'

'I studied under her – we shared lessons as children.'

Her hair had splayed with the force of his rough handling and Loki now scrutinised her heart-shaped face. She was one of Freyja's. Unlike her mother's sumptuous lineaments, her own features were delicate, her complexion fairer, and her locks a darker auburn. His brows furrowed. 'S...'

'Lady Sigyn, Your Majesty.'

'And later?'

'H-haematurgist.'

'I gathered as much.' Now that made some sense. His symptoms had appeared after sustaining the injury on Muspelheim, when he'd lost most of his blood. He cocked his head to prompt her further, and she grew frantic.

'Please – I swore an oath to the All-Mother to keep it from you, to keep away from you –'

A maiden his mother had forbade him? _Interesting_. 'She's dead,' Loki growled. 'And you've failed.'

The Lady Sigyn sagged with defeat. She took several aborted breaths before she began, her honeyed voice hoarse with grief. 'When you returned from Muspelheim, you weren't revived with donor blood. Yours was too rare – I know why now ...' The dangerous flash in his eyes warned her to drop the subject of his heritage. 'You were dying. I brewed a potion ... with my own blood, that your body wouldn't reject.'

At last, the puzzle pieces slid into place. ' _Sanguine_ ,' he deduced in a faint rasp, and she hung her head as he released her throat, recoiling.

That brief mania that he had felt was love. Hers, for him. How such a thing was possible he couldn't imagine, but he knew it was real – he'd felt it. The ghost of it still haunted his veins, and he felt it stirring now, so close to its origin. Dread gripped him. There was nothing so terrifying as someone's love – it was an infection, a folly, dulling the wits and softening the skin. He wanted to hate her for tampering with his mind and toying with his heart. But this stranger felt as familiar to him as Thor once had, and had saved his life, even.

'I didn't do it for myself - I did it for Her Majesty. F-for you. It was a gift; you'd become so sullen, and she was so worried for you – I know I didn't have the right. It was a mistake, it ruined you – I ruined everything ...'

It was at the sight of the tortured tears spilling down her cheeks that Loki remembered the briar patch, and a Vanir girl's fey-like face marred with bleeding cuts and scratches to match her hair, her amber eyes red with tears as he teased her, painstakingly from the vicious clutch of the thorns before carrying her to the healing rooms. She had been pushed into the rosebeds by a band of noble youths, who had fled when Loki retaliated with an illusion of a giant serpent bursting from the bushes. But she wasn't their target – they'd been taunting him, like they always did. She'd put herself between them. He played alone after that. Studied alone. Trained alone.

By the Nine, she was a relic.

And an alluring curiosity. She'd loved him once, only that he knew. Her sympathies might have faded, but she was the closest approximation to an ally that he had in all the Realms. Slouched upon the throne Loki had coveted his whole life, his victory condemned by the Aesir who had expected to celebrate Thor's ascension; motherless, fatherless, brotherless; he was lonely. Maddeningly, piteously lonely. He couldn't hate her.

Sigyn flinched as he drew the blade from her flesh and cupped her waist, placing his thumb over the wound. He healed it in an instant, asking quietly, 'You truly think me ruined?'

She choked on a whimper and hung her head once more to hide another wave of tears. She sniffed and steadied her breath. 'The things you did …'

His glare hardened on her. 'As Odin decimated Jotunheim, and Svartalfheim, before me? As he subjugated the Nine Realms before I took a single Midgardian city? The _things I did_ following in the footsteps of the All-Father, who was commended for conquering Asgard's enemies and enforcing the unification of the Realms?'

She stilled at his words, pulled between what she had come to believe and his persuasion. Then she shook her head, saying, 'I'm so sorry. For everything I put you through, everything.'

'There were betrayals greater than your blood in my veins to blame for my grief, I can assure you.'

Still, she'd cursed him, and it gave him a moral right to exact a price. Loki considered how he might turn the situation to his advantage. His weakness was still hers, a vulnerability too tempting not to exploit. He was no stranger to impaling himself to twist the blade in another. His eyes wandered over her. Even raw with torment, she was delectable. Especially so. If she'd made herself known to him previously, she wouldn't have needed a potion to ensnare his attention. With a twisted thrill the King decided that he could do with a pet.

'I'm satisfied of your penitence, Lady Sigyn,' Loki announced. 'I'd like to offer you the chance to atone for your sin.'

She straightened. 'I would gladly devote my life to doing so, for Asgard, and the memory of her late Queen.'

Now that he had her in his clutches Loki was loathe to release her, but suppressed the urge to lure her to the palace this moment. He had to trust that she would return to him, and decided to rely upon her curiosity to draw her back. He let a smile spread across his face. 'Dine with me. Tomorrow night.'

Sigyn gaped.

'Companions are in short supply these days, as you might imagine,' he added.

After another pause she spluttered out, 'I only convinced the Queen I wasn't trying to bewitch you by swearing to stay out of sight!'

'Again, you've failed,' Loki informed her smoothly.

Even as colour tinged her cheeks, she peered up at him in disbelief. 'Any affinity you might feel for me isn't genuine –'

'Nonetheless.'

He saw her hope lose to cynicism as she grew exasperated. 'I belong in the dungeons, not at your dining table.'

Loki hissed a chuckle, growing bemused. This was a most peculiar creature, crippled by her own sense of honour. She was trying so hard not to manipulate him, though by branding his very blood with her own, she had forged a leash of seidr on his heavily armoured heart. 'If it satisfies you; I, King Loki of Asgard, sentence you to dine at the table of the most hated ruler in the Nine Realms.'

At last she conceded with a solemn bow of her head. 'Very well, Your Majesty.'


	3. Part 3

_AN: Shit did life get in the way of this chapter. I'm back from the dead with more garbage, let me know if you're still reading!  
_

* * *

 **P** **art 3**

* * *

Sigyn's hand shook as she ran a comb through the tangled lengths of her hair and lined her eyes with kohl. It was more than just nerves; she hadn't attended to her appearance in some time and the motions came back to her slowly. She leant back on her stool and attempted a limp smile. The liner had only deepened the shadows beneath her eyes, she observed with a twinge of regret. She rubbed at her eyelids, smudging some if it away.

'What's the occasion?'

Sigyn jumped at the enquiry. She turned to see Lofn peering at her from the doorway wearing a quizzical expression.

'I'm to dine with someone tonight,' she admitted stiffly.

Her sister beamed. 'A man?'

Sigyn nodded.

'Do I know him?'

'You hate him,' Sigyn replied.

'Master _Olak_?' the younger sister squawked, scowling in disgust at the thought of her own crabby old tutor.

She shook her head, amusement tugging at her lips for a moment – a feat only her dear Lofn had the gift for. 'No – the King.'

Sigyn wasn't sure which went wider – Lofn's eyes or her mouth. 'What did you do to deserve that?'

'He wants to … repay me, for saving him years ago.'

Lofn raised a brow and sauntered inside. 'You missed a patch,' she observed, taking up the comb and a knotted lock of Sigyn's hair. 'Let's hope he isn't looking for a wife!' she jeered as she teased out the knots. 'You'd have to sleep with one eye open from the wedding night.'

Sigyn's giggle quickly caught in her throat like a burr. She met her sister's eyes though the mirror, and smiled wistfully. 'I loved him once,' she confessed, exhaling the weight of the words in a whisper. 'That's why I saved him.'

She gaped, her ever-honest hazel eyes betraying a shifting mixture of distaste, incomprehension, and pity. 'You mean, before he went mad?'

'Yes,' Sigyn justified, and went on to ponder how mad was too mad. But had she not spurred his fall from grace? Had she not been the one to push him from the Bridge, and into the clutch of Thanos? Was she herself any more sound of mind? Suddenly, she was grasping her sister's arm, searching her face imploringly. 'Lo' – do you think the boy I fell for may still live in the man he became?' she said in a rush. 'What if I've gone mad, too?'

Lofn leant to press a kiss atop her hair. 'You're not mad, sister. We all miss the All-Mother.' She encircled Sigyn's shoulders with her arms. Then she added, 'Can I tell Mama?'

'No,' Sigyn protested swiftly. 'She'd try to put me up to some elaborate seduction to influence his policies. I want her out of this, whatever it is.'

* * *

Sigyn walked to the palace. She followed the last trails of sunlight as murky storm clouds encroached on the horizon, leaving the humid air redolent with petrichor. A faint breeze wove through her fingers like the tug of a gentle hand, beckoning her as though impatient with her apprehensive pace.

She knew where to go. She bypassed the great hall, turning from the commotion inside into a gilded corridor. The guards at each set of doors waved her through along her route to the Royal Family's private dining room, where she'd occasionally accompanied Frigga for luncheon – but never supper.

When Sigyn reached the final passageway leading to the chamber, her feet dragged to a stop. She dug her nails into her palms, willing herself to approach the steward waiting outside the door. With a flush of anger she forced one foot in front of the other, and all too soon arrived at the threshold. The steward ushered her inside and departed with a bow.

'Good evening.'

Loki sidled into sight with slow grace. His attention trailed over her lingeringly, her unpractised attempts at grooming surely plain to him. She dared only a fleeting glance his way to see he was handsome as ever. The length of his hair now seemed at odds with his elegant features and regal bearing, creating an intriguing portrait of rebellion and refinement. He appeared to have let a little madness creep out through the cracks in his once perfect composure, and it served only to unnerve.

A small feast awaited them upon a long table. She rose from her curtsey, and his Majesty led her to a chair.

Frigga's. Sigyn froze, her gut twisting with guilt. Loki pulled the seat out and waited, until she stumbled forward and took his mother's place at the table, feeling abominably unworthy. She desperately wondered if it were too late to honour her oath to Frigga, to jump out of the Queen's chair and run; back to the refuge of her lab, her books, her potions.

'Busy day?' Loki ventured as he settled at the opposing end, interrupting her wild thoughts.

'Yes –' She faltered at the thought of her directionless, distracted routine. Her stare skimmed across him to the knife set before her, glinting in the firelight. 'No, not really.'

'Lady Sigyn if you're to dine with me, I would ask that you look at me.'

Sigyn gradually forced her eyes upward. As her gaze grazed painfully on his, he leant forward, brows lifting earnestly in a glimmer of the Prince she remembered. 'I'm not the boy who saved you, and you're not the girl I saved. Let us meet as the strangers we've become.'

The tension in her muscles relented. 'Yes Sire,' she breathed, allowing her weight to rest fully upon the cushioned dining chair.

'May I call you Sigyn?'

She nodded.

'Then you may call me Loki.'

'Pleasure to meet you, Loki,' she obliged him.

Sigyn wasn't hungry, but she set about filling her plate to please him. She doled out a few roasted vegetables to start with, and a hunk of bread. Meat, no matter how deliciously prepared, did not appeal to her palate anymore. She nibbled at a few pieces uneasily, but had soon taken to picking at her food with her fork more than eating it. Her attention shifted to the goblet beside her plate, and she grabbed it, taking a long draught. The mead swept straight through her hollow chest, blunting the edge of her misery that lingered there like a noxious vapour.

Her habits did not escape the King's notice. 'You've no appetite?' he commented.

She lowered the goblet from her lips. 'I'm afraid I lost it some months ago.'

He nodded to himself. 'I confess my own appetite is like quicksilver. Each evening I sit down to feast, starving, but before I can satisfy my hunger it disappears, and the feeling of food in my throat sickens me.'

Sigyn observed the wasted banquet spread between them. 'We're proving poor dining companions,' she jested gently.

'Just companions, then,' Loki proposed, abandoning his plate and leaning back into his chair. He cocked his head and surveyed her across the table. 'So, what do you do with yourself now that you've no Queen to attend?'

Sigyn set down her fork gratefully. 'Research, mostly,' she answered. 'Medicinal Haematurgy.'

His lips sprang into a surprised smile. 'Martial seidr doesn't interest you? Your talent is formidable.'

'I've trained in combat, as all the Royal Handmaids,' Sigyn conceded. 'But the All-Mother guided me towards the healing arts. I think my gift disturbed her.'

'Do _you_ fear your talent?'

She hesitated in her answer. 'I might have loved it once,' she admitted. 'But I've made too many mistakes.'

A shadow crossed his expression. 'I've never let that stop me.'

'Evidently,' Sigyn muttered, but Loki only sipped from his own goblet, appearing lost in thought for a few moments.

His next question was elusive. 'If you'll excuse my curiosity – I've never been well-liked, on any Realm – If I may ask …' His smooth words faltered. 'All those years ago, how did you – how did such a depth of affection … arise?'

Sigyn was equally speechless on the matter. She fought to dispel the blood gathering in her cheeks. 'I … Well ...'

He smirked as his discomfort became hers. 'Come now,' he crooned with another tilt of his head, 'your secret's out already.'

She supposed he was right. Sigyn dared not look away from the candlelit centrepiece as she took a few moments to make sense of her sentiments. 'After you saved me from the thorns, I began to take closer notice of you, hoping to find a way to repay your kindness. I took too much notice. The All-Mother spoke of you often, with such fondness … I saw everything she did, and more.'

Try as they might, their conversation kept circling around Frigga. She haunted every blink of the eye, each beat of the heart, relentless as a restless spirit. Loki had gone very still, his expression becoming immobile. A heavy silence stretched between them, until it broke when he drew an abrupt breath and asked, quietly, 'What was the ceremony like?'

He hadn't been there, of course. Frigga was sent off without her favourite son to bless her journey.

'It was held in the evening,' Sigyn recalled. 'I dressed her myself. The gown embroidered in the shades of a blazing sunset – with pearl white petals sewn across the shoulders. Bronze breastplate; her favourite silver circlet. She sailed flaming into the stars, the fairest warrior leading her slain subjects home to Valhalla.' Sigyn's throat tightened as she recounted the details, and she felt tears welling in her eyes. With a shake of her head she bitterly commented, 'I should have been fighting alongside her.'

'You're not to blame,' Loki consoled in a hoarse voice.

'You don't understand,' Sigyn pressed, her shoulders sagging under the weight of her shame. 'I served on her vanguard. But I was – _moping –_ in my lab when they struck. I didn't reach her in time; she had to face Malekith alone.' She bit down on her lip.

He leaned onto his forearm, the move barely compensating for the distance between them. The air of fragile formality had been stripped from the room, unveiling the grief haunting the King and his companion. 'None of the guard reached her; you're no more responsible for what happened than they.'

'But _I_ would have made the difference. I'd have boiled that creature's blood in its veins before it touched her; burst Malekith's heart with his own ichor. _All this power,_ and I do nothing but harm –'

Loki raised his palms to her. 'You're entirely mistaken –'

Sigyn's tears slipped from her blackened lashes. '– I failed her _so many times_ –'

' _I did it_ ,' Loki spat suddenly, silencing her.

Sigyn glanced swiftly up at him.

He glowered with the same flames of self-hatred that burnt her own heart to coal. 'I directed the beast right to her.'

' _Why?_ '

'I wanted to see how much damage could be done to the House of Odin from my cell. I didn't think she'd be at the heart of it, protecting an Infinity Stone.' He grit his teeth on the crack in his voice.

Sigyn gasped a sob, her body seizing up with sorrow. The table blurred before her, and she lost sight of him at the end of it. She strongly suspected he had uttered his confession to no other soul. 'Then I should have been there to allay your mistake.'

'You needn't have if not for my foolishness,' he croaked in response.

With a sniff Sigyn blinked away her tears, and directed her stare at him. 'I forgive you,' she whispered.

He coughed a masochistic laugh. 'Nonsense –'

' _I forgive you_. And the truth will die with me.'

It was Loki who broke his gaze this time. 'I'm not asking for it.'

'But how sorely you need it,' she determined.

'That's not what you're here for,' he reminded her, and she fell silent. Loki shook his head at Sigyn. 'You grieve her like a daughter,' he remarked. 'But you've a mother of your own.'

Sigyn drew a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. 'Your mother understood me in a way my own cannot,' she explained. 'Freyja loves me very much, but I confound her. She's always off travelling exotic realms, courting witless fellows, playing her games.'

'You just poison them. Totally different.'

Her jaw fell, scandalised. 'My intentions were far from –'

He managed a chuckle. 'It would seem the apple is not so far fallen from the tree as you'd claim. You'd have heard the All-Mother say, that the sorcerer who does not know his talents is often-times more dangerous than he who does. Most of all to himself.'

'I'm _nothing_ like my mother,' Sigyn flared. 'My talent lies in helping people and protecting the Realm. In healing the worthy and dispensing of the unworthy.'

Loki bared his teeth in a sly grin. 'Don't tell me you didn't find some satisfaction in having your yearning returned. Or that you didn't nurture some small hope that despite your best efforts I might still glimpse you, or stumble into you. That I wouldn't forget, and this – here, now – is what you truly wanted.'

His words crept into the darkest chambers of her heart, and it beat wildly beneath her breast as if trying to flush him out. Her face hardened to a mask of lead, vainly shuttering on the buried truths he'd excavated from beneath her prideful honour.

He continued, ' _I_ won't pretend I don't enjoy pulling back on the same strings you bound me with, and watching you choke in the snare of my pain. Know thyself, sorceress.'

 _Don't deny y_ _ou're every bit as corrupt as I._ Sigyn realised Loki's forgiveness was not given so easily as her own, but she believed her work could win it. 'Whatever hopes you ascribe to me departed as ash on the wind long ago. I'd have you know, I've dedicated my time to rendering _Sanguine_ redundant.'

'Oh? So you do something of value in that lab of yours after all.'

'I'm developing a universal blood substitute.'

That gave him pause. 'Ambitious,' he admitted. 'Has it proven promising?'

'I'm experimenting with an enchantment structure that might stabilise a solution of the components of all blood types.'

He quirked a brow. 'Such a structure would be unstable by its very nature.'

'Yes. The formation starts with – actually, it's probably better if I draw it – have you a quill?'

'Over here,' he said, rising from his chair and waving her over to the table before the fireplace. He retrieved a quill and inkwell from a nearby set of drawers, but found it absent of parchment. Sigyn smoothed out her dampened handkerchief on the table as Loki settled beside her on the settee.

'This is holding it all together,' she explained, loading the quill and sketching out the array of seidr. She arranged another pattern of symbols within it. 'While the core is dynamic. See it has to recede the non-matching blood types upon contact so it isn't rejected.'

Loki leant over her shoulder, and reached out a slender hand to slide the illustration closer. 'Norns,' he murmured, squinting at the symbology. 'It's powerful, but elegant.'

'How durable do you think it is?' she asked. 'It needs to be incorruptible.'

'You've reinforced all the vulnerabilities,' he noted, pointing out the weaker links. 'This is … an impressive piece of work, Sigyn. Do you have everything you need?'

'My stores are running low, especially the rarer samples,' she admitted. 'My work was resourced at the Queen's discretion.'

'I'll see that it's renewed.'

Sigyn gave her thanks, and reconsidered Loki's earlier statements. 'So, do you still think I'm wasted in a lab?' she teased.

Loki regarded her with a look of steady appreciation. 'From what I've seen, you're not wasted anywhere, Sigyn.' He leaned in fractionally. 'In fact, I would see that no part of you goes to waste.'

His assertion caressed a deep wound in her spirit that she survived by leaving undisturbed. She cast her eyes back down to her design, unable to reconcile the King's belief with her truth. Sigyn couldn't help but think of its inverse project. 'There's ... another working I'm devising,' she revealed. 'There isn't a safe method of lifting spells from the blood, but I've a few theories I think are promising. We could experiment.'

This did not seem to spark the same interest as her first idea, and his focus dropped. 'What's done is done,' he muttered.

'If I crack it, I could purge my taint from your blood,' she argued hopefully.

Discomfort knitted his brows, and he grew strangely guarded, folding his arms. 'It's not necessary.'

'Wouldn't you prefer to be free of me?' Sigyn implored.

He shrugged. 'Not particularly.'

'You only think that because of the curse.'

'Sigyn.' He grew stern. 'I don't want to be cured. My mind has been tampered with well enough – deceived, manipulated, ensorcelled. Let it be my own, such as it is.'

'But –'

'It's part of me now.'

'You wouldn't _feel_ that way if you let me –'

Loki grabbed her by the shoulder, pulling her to face him. 'You can't undo what you did,' he rasped, his gaze a fierce jade gleam. ' _You can't undo what you did_. You can only make up for it.'

' _Nothing_ could make up for my mistake,' Sigyn lamented hopelessly.

'That's for me to decide.'

She peered up at him. 'Am I forgiven, then?'

He rolled his lips together in consideration, releasing her and grasping his leather-clad thighs. 'Maybe tomorrow night.'

He was inviting her back again, after this debacle of a dining experience? 'I probably won't eat anything,' she doubted.

'Nor will I. We'll find something to do.'

* * *

After bidding Sigyn goodnight and sealing the door shut, Loki plucked her forgotten handkerchief from the table. In a flight of fancy he cupped it to his nose and inhaled. Her scent was not a soft dream, recalling exotic flowers – but a spiced vision of medicinal herbs and poison berries, laced with his ink. Before he could take a second whiff Loki wrenched it from his nose, disgusted at himself. He strode to the fireplace, but his arm stiffened as he made to cast the cloth into the flames – and he could only crush it in his fist.

He couldn't explain to her his instinct to preserve her curse. Not yet, anyway. He was depending on her guilt. But close to daybreak as Loki tossed and turned in his blankets, a suspicion had dawned on him; that whatever imprint Sigyn's blood had left on his might have conferred some form of protection long after his fall from the Bifrost. If not for the sheerest veil shrouding his heart from the Tesseract's influence, Thanos might have claimed him after all.


	4. Part 4

_* KINK INBOUND *  
Inspired by Leathers – Deftones_ [youtube watch?v=9CpjFgEioBc]

 _Delayed again by the world still trying to kill me, this time it was a car crash l-lol. Every plot point in my life is a punchline in a cruel joke ^_^ #prayforviolet #ninelivesmatter_

* * *

Part 4

* * *

Sigyn shifted in the Queen's chair uncomfortably. She was distracted, her attention tugged incessantly to a point she couldn't place. Behind Loki's sussurant tones at the end of the dining table, beneath the steady rhythm of his heartbeat between the shallow pulse of her own, something drummed.

She could usually detect one other heartbeat over her own with clarity. A third or more became a cacophony she couldn't identify. Her own heart now accelerated with dread to a staccato, muting her haematurgical senses.

'Are there any servants here?' Sigyn cut in over the King, ignoring propriety.

The cascade of Loki's words halted and his gaze narrowed on her quizzically. 'In the hallway –'

Her eyes went wide with alarm. He froze as her stare darted above him – to where a tapestry shifted against the wall.

Sigyn sprang to her feet, throwing the chair to the ground behind her as her arm shot out toward a figure clad in black now flying at the King – who ducked and rolled to the side. The flash of a curved blade lit a fuse on Sigyn's subterraneous fury, and her fingers stiffened, rendering the assassin rigid as though turned to stone as she seized control of his blood, paralysing his circulatory system. She twisted her palm up with a jerk and sent a torrent of blood through his arteries to his head, felling him with an aneurysm in one brutal instant.

The assailant collapsed with a clunk and a clatter. Sigyn drew closer while Loki knelt to examine him, pulling the mask back to reveal an Asgardian face with blood streaking from the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

'Norns, that's the second one this week.'

'He was very calm. It took me a while to discern the interference with our heartbeats.'

Loki peered up at her.

It was not the first life Sigyn had taken. That occasion had been the one that disturbed the Queen into reassigning her to medicine. Frigga had seen how it seduced her – more than the flex of power that hummed through Sigyn's muscles; her enchantment with the beauty of it. The stare Loki turned on her was not his mother's horror, but one of intent fascination.

'Would you have preferred to question him?' Sigyn murmured sheepishly.

He gave an unconcerned shrug. 'If you keep on saving me like this I'll owe you half the Kingdom before long.'

'Mother would be most proud,' she replied grimly.

'Do you … hear anything else?' Loki quested.

Sigyn clenched her eyes and stretched her senses. 'I can only really tell whether or not I'm alone,' she admitted. 'I can't hear very accurately over your heart. Unless I stopped it for a moment, if you really want to know,' she offered.

He hesitated, understandably – mistrust was second nature to him. Sigyn saw the calculation click over in his eyes as he deliberated whom he trusted least – the woman who kept saving his life though she could easily take it, or those who conspired to end it. Finally he said, 'I want to know.'

She lowered herself beside him and Loki reclined against the table leg, watching her warily as she raised her fingers to hover timidly over his chest. 'Deep breath,' Sigyn advised. With a tensing of her fingers his heart cramped, spasmed, and was still; his mouth fell open in suffocation as what little colour his face held vanished. Sigyn held her own breath and listened …

Silence stretched between her breaths. They were alone. Sigyn released her hold on Loki's heart and he gasped deeply, the surcoat straining across his heaving chest. 'We're safe,' she reported swiftly while she revived him. She wafted her fingertips upward, stoking his pulse to a state of elevated vigour to compensate for the enervation she'd inflicted. His wilted frame straightened with renewed strength, greater than what he'd lost, and he regarded her with sharpened curiosity.

'As you were, Lady Sigyn,' said Loki. ' _Guards!_ '

Sigyn returned to her upturned seat while guards dragged the body from the room, and tried to ignore their suspicious glances. She clasped her hands in her lap and waited for her composure to return as power coiled back within her muscles like a curling dragon.

'A spot of murder not enough to work up your appetite?' Loki asked as she poured mead into her goblet.

'Afraid not,' said Sigyn as she put the cup to her lips, her thoughts following a different direction.

'What troubles you?'

She met his stare with uncertainty. 'You haven't asked.'

'Asked what?'

'If I've somebody who needs to permit my attendance here,' she pointed out. 'Someone else I should be spending the evenings with.'

Loki's brows furrowed. 'I care not who's left waiting for you. None but another King can object to my wishes. Are you questioning my authority?'

'I suppose not.'

'Your place is here. As always – though I didn't always know,' he added. 'How you passed unnoticed all those years will never cease to mystify me.'

'In the shadow of my more luminous sisters,' she offered, and felt that by the slight softening of his gaze, the second son understood.

'Tell me, why did you never appear at the balls? The feasts at least.'

'I swore an oath, I dared not take such a risk –'

'No – before that.'

Sigyn shook her head. 'Even if I'd caught your eye, or shared a dance, or entertained a flirtation – Princes choose Princesses. Not handmaids.'

His lips twitched. 'My Lady, you wholly underestimate my capacity to do what I want.' He stood from the chair and stalked the length of the table, coming to a stop at her elbow. He outstretched a pale hand. 'Dance with me.'

Their fingers brushed and twined together. 'But there's no music,' Sigyn protested as he lifted her to her feet.

'Listen,' he bade her, his other hand pulling her waist against him.

A distant rhythm echoed up from the great hall, where revelry played on without them. The melody of the tune was lost on the air but the beat of the drums carried to the chamber, guiding their feet as they began a slow waltz. Loosely at first, and then with growing synchronicity as they adjusted to their heights. Sigyn thought of him up here every night alone, listening to the company below, and her grasp tightened on his hand.

'Lady Freyja and her daughters are famed for their conquests,' Loki mused as they circled the floor. 'You could have made a puppet of me. What stopped you, Sigyn – from exploiting your influence?'

'I'm not my family, any more than you are,' Sigyn bristled irritably, her steps halting. 'I've no desire to enslave men or women … I know only slavery in love.'

His jaw flexed. 'What prospects will you pursue now that your service has ended?' he asked with a forward nudge.

'I'm due to take a sabbatical in Vanaheim.'

'Don't,' he said swiftly. 'I'll retain you.'

She cocked her head. 'In what capacity?'

'On _my_ vanguard,' Loki offered. 'You've proven rather adept at keeping me alive. You'd be an invaluable asset.'

He watched her expectantly, and Sigyn observed that he seemed genuinely invested in her taking the position. Supposedly he realised she was someone who may actually care about protecting him beyond the gold they'd earn for it. Something more peered out from his stare as he awaited her answer, which reminded her of fear – but was blinked away as she fixed on it. She considered how tonight's attempt on his life within such a safe part of the palace could have even occurred, and it hit her – he couldn't trust his own staff.

'I would be honoured,' she accepted. 'If only you'll allow me to continue my projects.'

'Of course.'

'Is that then how I shall earn your forgiveness – in bloodshed?' asked Sigyn. The conditions of her atonement kept shifting, but they were about to shift even further from a night of dining and dance.

'No.' Loki lowered her hand, but kept hold of it. 'For my forgiveness ... I'm afraid death nor dinner won't be reparation enough, Lady Sigyn.' His tongue moistened his lips as he watched hers. 'I'd take you as my consort.'

With a predatory sway of his shoulders, Loki had danced her against the edge of the dining table. With a bump she pressed back against it, but stammered in protest, 'The All-Mother would have my head –'

At this Loki reached up and took her by the chin, tipping her face up to his. 'You're sworn to obey _me_ now – yes?'

His eyes were pinned to hers with deadly intensity, paralysing her limbs with a look as she could only do with seidr. A tingle shivered up her spine that left her weak in his clutches, and she could only nod.

'Then it's my judgement you live by. And I'd see you redeemed on your knees. Something that should come naturally to you.'

Sigyn shakily released the breath she was holding. Her palm felt sweaty in his hand. 'It's more than I deserve,' she admitted. 'But I'm afraid I'm unfit for such a role.'

He flashed a sharp smile. 'And why would that be?'

'I found ruin long before I wrought yours. I'm afflicted with … corrupted impulses. I've tried to enjoy natural desires, but my dalliances have been unsatisfying …' Her eyes were fixed at his boots, cheeks now burning with embarrassment.

Loki leant in slowly, a grin twisting his lips. 'Show me yours,' he solicited in a velvet purr, 'and I'll show you mine.'

'Are you certain?' she whispered up at him.

'Unreservedly.'

Her voice was frail with disbelief. 'When do we start?'

'Whenever you're ready to be forgiven.'

* * *

Sigyn pulled her fingers from his and turned her wrist up to him. Loki slowly rolled up her sleeve, to uncover an incision.

'I need to bleed,' she confessed, her voice muted by shame.

Loki all but rolled his eyes. 'Is _that_ all?' he chuckled. His gaze travelled downward. 'Where else?'

She slowly pointed to unseen sites beneath her breast, on her stomach, her thigh.

Loki unsheathed a finely-sharpened dagger from his surcoat and her eyes swung to it. He lifted the hem of her gown and ran the blade to her hip in one fluid gesture, splitting the material at her thigh. 'Don't worry,' he said at her shock, 'I'll have any number made for you. But only in green.'

She settled on the edge of the table and fell silent, her breath quickening as he continued to slice the gown to shreds until he'd carved her curves from the cloth. When he leant back to admire his work, his grin widened at what he found. Here and there lingered more clean cuts made by a blade too sharp to scar. His fingertips were drawn to them, and as he traced each one he imagined the ex-healer nicking herself with a lifted scalpel, her fingers working below to the rhythm of her frustrated instincts. She shivered under his touch, her heart beating heat through her numb veins.

Loki softly set the blade to her skin and her eyes flew to his, terrified and yearning. 'I don't deserve –'

He clasped her throat. 'You don't. I do.' He pulled her to his chest and lowered his lips to her ear, breath ghosting her pulse as he explained, 'It would please me to see you in pieces, mindless with need.'

Then he drew the blade against her thigh. Sigyn winced and sagged against his shoulder, emitting a sigh of such deep relief that the back of Loki's neck prickled sharply.

'Another?'

She nodded. Soon time escaped them as Loki painted a portrait of his memory of her with his knife, until next he knew the sorceress was once again stung with strings of crimson ribbons bejewelled with glistening garnets. She bloomed under his attention as firelight glimmered on her sweat-dewed skin, a dusky flush rose in her cheeks, and her lips ripened to cherries. When he was done, Loki caught her jaw with his thumb. He recognised a desperate mesmerisation in her eyes once more, the same tremble in her knees. It was still he, the nimble-fingered Prince she trusted to touch her as she bled.

'Just as I remember,' he soughed sweetly as he gazed down enraptured by the dishevelled pet suffering for his love. 'My, how wild you've grown. Be mine, little Briar-rose.'

Sigyn stared back up at him in sly reverence, amber fire in her eyes daring him, begging him, to do anything he wished. Her focus dropped to the dagger in his fist – and she nudged her cheekbone against the blade, marking herself by him.

His jaw slackened in awe. He fought to remind himself that she was just a plaything, weak and impressible. He'd planned to break her in to servitude slowly, toying with her over a series of encounters. But his blood howled for her, impelling his nerves. Only distantly he noticed the touch of her seidr, a thirsting moon that reached beneath his armour, pulling the tides of his blood down his body. Her blood sang to itself in him, calling him home.

Loki dropped the dagger onto the table and grasped her in his hands, capturing her mouth with his. And the moment he did, madness erupted in his chest, making a volcanic return that dragged a pained moan from his throat as craving ached in his bones. Norns, it hurt just as deeply as it had years ago – except this time she was his to soothe it, with nowhere to run, and her lips were the sweetest solace. He gripped her tighter, painfully so, as mead met wine on their tongues. _His weakness was hers,_ he recited as it stabbed and twisted.

Gasping, Sigyn reached into his coat, seeking the claspings – but he stilled her questing hands. 'That's mine,' he confessed between her lips.

His twisted instinct. Aneed to possess while remaining shielded by a maze of strapped layers. To watch his conquests respond like puppets to his manipulations with uncompromised composure from the safety of his armour. He couldn't bring himself to be the one to break and beg under another's touch. Indeed, he'd spared no gratitude for the maids who'd made an exception for him after failing to score Thor, giving nothing of himself as he defiled them, those who'd only chosen him _second_.

The one who'd chosen him first all along now ran her hands over his shoulders and down his armour, undeterred. She leant in to press her lips to his leathers, and her tongue darted out to dab at the material as one would taste a man's skin, ignoring the barrier he maintained. Loki gaped at her worship. _How could Frigga have denied him this?_ he marvelled. 'Show me how sorry you are,' he purred. 'Convince me.' He felt himself go faint when she began to nip at the pleats and seams with her teeth, gently at first and then hard enough to tug him against her.

Loki fell upon her ravenously and proceeded to take his teeth and tongue to the rest of her, until she ripped the zipper of his surcoat and clawed at the fastening of his breeches. He draped her legs around his hips and took her face in his hands again. 'You did the right thing, darling,' he hummed. 'What matters is I'm alive to punish you for it.' Then he melted into her, as perfectly as his fingers splayed the pages of a book, as the nib of his quill dipped into an inkwell, as his blade sheathed in an enemy.

'Am I all you imagined?' he teased with a wicked smirk, chin smeared with blood.

'More,' she breathed limply. ' _M_ _ore_ –'

Loki pushed Sigyn down onto her back, obliging her give and take. With a deep rumble, the sky outside was rent by lightning and heavy rainfall came spilling against the fogging windows. His bloodstained fingertips stroked and teased and _dug_. Soon the air was tinged with their panted breath between the creak of leather over the lush slicking of their movements and the drip of rain from the gutters. After a period of thorough experimentation, Loki found the rhythm that made her writhe and whine his name in a way that undid him. Sweat dropped from his forehead onto her stomach. ' _Witch_ ,' he cursed with relish as he followed her into rapture, carelessly unleashing in her suckling clutch.

When his spent flesh ebbed from hers moments later, warmth flooded the space in his wake and in an instant Sigyn was gripped by dread. 'Oh no,' she moaned and scrambled back from him as though it would do any good. '– You shouldn't have –'

'But you begged so very sweetly,' he countered, wiping himself off on her rags.

'I didn't –' she began to protest, but he only quirked a brow.

'Not with your mouth.' Loki fisted her hair and dragged her up against him. ' _You're mine_ ,' he vowed, and Sigyn had never known such peace.

* * *

Sigyn blinked and was stunned as the warm light suddenly dimmed to the flicker of a single brazier – now cast upon the marble walls of an opulent bathroom. She glanced downward to find a cool countertop in the dining table's place beneath her.

Loki remained before her, his damp features fixed in concentration. He combed his fingers down through her mussed hair, and then set to work erasing all evidence of their impropriety. Tugging off the remnants of her gown, he smoothed his hands over every inch of her skin, sealing each injury with a touch of seidr.

When his thumb rose to her cheek Sigyn sucked in a breath. 'Leave that one.'

His thumb hovered over her cheek as he paused in consideration. He relented, retracting his thumb into a fist before continuing. With a soaked cloth he wiped away every streak of blood smudged across her skin. His touch was tender now, stirring her pulse with a subtler grace. Under such care Sigyn was assailed by guilt so terrible it left her quivering at the thought of Frigga's wrath. Her eyes pricked with tears.

'What's the matter with you?' Loki asked as her breathing sharpened.

Sigyn masked her mouth with a shaking hand. 'She'd be so disappointed in me. She'd hate me.'

He threw his head back. 'So _virtuous_ ,' he mocked through a gritted grin. 'I killed her, Sigyn. I'm _unworthy_ of her protections – your oath is void,' he argued. 'Finding you was my punishment.'

'And mine?'

'Whatever indenture I design.' And with those words he tugged her off the countertop and turned her over it, pressing her down by the small of her back. He pushed her hair aside and leant to sweep his tongue across the nape of her neck. Sigyn felt the press of leather against her backside and heard the clink of a buckle.

'What are you doing ...'

His voice dropped to a silky hiss beside her ear. 'Every time you speak of her I'm going to _fuck you again_.'

Teeth sank into her neck and Sigyn gaped as he helped himself to the weeping wound he'd made between her legs. Her shuddering gasps echoed back to her as his swollen flesh corrupted hers once more, mocking the flimsy shreds of virtue she clung to. The tears cooled on her lashes.

'There's no-one left to stop you, Sigyn,' he implored as his fingertips crept to the throbbing bud of nerves below her navel. ' _And no-one to stop me_.'

They both knew he couldn't do anything she didn't want – not without an equally matched fight at least. She could paralyse him, or render him impotent entirely the moment he moved in a way that caused her true displeasure. But Loki knew too that the trick to keeping her on her knees was in making it worth her while. Sigyn arched against him, and he slowed to long strokes that soon stoked an intolerable ache within her until she was squirming and mewling in his grip once again. Her mind was blank, awash with indulgence and the comfort of compliance as his satisfied sigh crashed like a distant wave.

'Every time,' Loki warned her in a cool whisper as they parted. Sigyn whimpered as she runneth over, and cream spilled down her thighs, splattering on the marble between her toes. 'Understood?'

'Yes Sire,' she breathed in acceptance, and his hands retracted.

He knelt and wiped her sullied legs clean, before rising to return to his earlier ministrations, carefully restoring her with meticulous detail. Finally he brushed his hands from her collarbones to her knees, and an imitation of her gown glimmered into place. Sigyn touched it only to feel her damp bare skin, and her heart raced at the prospect of walking back to the townhouse clothed in nothing but an illusion.

Another blink returned her to the dining room, with not a piece of cutlery out of place save for the aromas of their sweat and the lukewarm food they'd abandoned. To Sigyn's surprise, a growl of hunger gnawed at her stomach. She found herself approaching the table, considering a leg of pheasant.

'Do you mind if I …'

'Not at all,' said Loki. 'In fact I … find myself somewhat – peckish.' He joined her, snacking on a hunk of bread smeared in sauce.

Sigyn reached for another morsel, and Loki another mouthful – and then suddenly they were both stuffing themselves, picking over the banquet like a pair of vultures. Sigyn pulled away, sucking juices off her fingertips. 'I – I don't know what came over me ...'

Loki's hand trailed through her bordeaux tresses, twining the ends round his fingers. 'Life becomes you, Sigyn.' Her bruised lips trembled into a smile that his gaze openly savoured. 'But I'm afraid I've exhausted you. You may retire for the evening, and I hope this time sleep finds you.'

'Am I forgiven?' she asked.

'Maybe tomorrow night.'

* * *

Sigyn returned home to find Lofn waiting in her bed. She spied the cut on her face before Sigyn could tip a fall of hair over it, and shot up sharply.

' _This is his thanks?_ ' raged Lofn, glaring at the mark the King had made on her sister.

Sigyn ran a hand through her hair as her web of untruths began to unravel. 'No Lofn, his punishment; for the curse I laid on his blood to restore it. He suffered though he survived.'

'But you didn't do anything wrong!'

Sigyn's voice rose more harshly than she intended. 'His forgiveness means everything to me Lofn! I'll do _anything_ to earn it. And he's going to let me.'

'This is madness,' her sister croaked, shaking her head.

'And I'm a madwoman,' she declared, pushing past her and crawling onto the bed. 'Leave me be. I'm exhausted, I had a lot to eat.'

'He got you to eat?' Sigyn dimly heard Lofn remark as she collapsed into a nest of blankets.


End file.
